


Sins Of The Father | Part Two

by CantSpeakFae



Series: Once More With Glitter [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Abusive Parents, Demonic Possession, F/M, I have a lot of feelings about characters that never got any screen time, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Past demon summoning, Resurrected Randall, Ronald Giles is a massive prick, Rupert Giles is at his wits end, The Council is evil, Violence right at the end there, Weaponized evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 01:46:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15853716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantSpeakFae/pseuds/CantSpeakFae
Summary: Giles isn't the same man that he was when he first arrived in Sunnydale, something he hadn't noticed until he found himself staring down the most terrifying monster of his childhood: his own father. But no amount of growth could prepare him for the evil that's happened under his nose, or what cost his old friend truly paid for their sins at the hands of Giles' own father.





	Sins Of The Father | Part Two

“...Father?”

Jenny repeats, mouthing the word at Rupert with panic in her dark eyes.  _ His  _ father? Oh god, what does he know? What is she supposed to know? What does he know that she knows?

Taking a deep breath to steep herself - she's no stranger to putting on a show - she grabs her papers up from the table and her coffee, clearing her throat.

“Well, thank you Mr. Giles for help with the uh...books. But, I should be going. I have a class in fifteen.” 

Something in his expression tells her that their date night might be...well, canceled. And as painfully curious as she is about this, she can tell when she's not meant to hear something. Offering him a supportive smile, she steps back and strolls toward the door, casting a curious glance at the other, strange man as she passes. Is that really his father?   
  
This _can’t_ be good. 

* * *

Ronald watches as the dark-haired woman slinks out of the room with that guilty expression on her face and his upper lip curls back over his teeth in disgust. Rupert’s taste clearly hasn't improved much... and this raises more questions than it answers. Is he seeing her? And if he is, how much does she know about the Slayer? With every other rule he's broken as a Watcher it's not a question of  _ if _ he's broken the code of secrecy but  _ when _ he did.

Hearing the door close behind the woman, he steps forward. Slowly approaching his son, looking him over, sighing when Rupert seems to be going out of his way to avoid his gaze, as though expecting a well-deserved thrashing. 

Hmph. Never was much of a man. His mother, rest her soul, spoiled him too damned much. And now look at him.

“You look well.” He says, for the sake of decent conversation. In truth, Rupert's looking a little drawn. “My apologies for not calling ahead. I intended to, but urgent matters leave no time for manners, as you know, and I didn't think you'd mind a visit from your father. Better me than Travers... he's still got half a mind to call you back to London.”   
  
His voice shakes with anger at the end. Not anger at Travers - though, he is bloody tired of that pompous fool. If Quentin hadn't been Elizabeth's brother, he'd - but at Rupert. His job wouldn't even be at stake if he'd been able to either keep the Slayer alive or let her stay dead. But no, he'd gone and thrown off the balance of an institution that predated time itself.   
  
“...Rupert, look at me when I'm talking to you. You're not a child; stand up straight and put your bloody glasses back on.” 

Giles sighs and puts his glasses back on. He puts his hands in his trouser pockets to hide his clenched fists and turns to face his...father.

That word doesn't suit the man standing before him. His "judge, jury, and executioner" is apter than "father." 

But Hallmark doesn't make cards for that.   
  
Giles takes a deep breath. “No, father, I'm not a child. I'm a professional at his place of employment and do not appreciate surprise visitors. Were no phones available at the Council? All out of messenger pigeons?” 

He pauses, letting that sink into the tense air between them. Then -

“I'd offer you a cup of tea, but I really don't want you staying that long.”

“I'm afraid the duration of my visit isn't up to either of us, Rupert. Believe me... I want nothing more than to be back in London. It's a full-time job, saving my good name from the weight of  _ your _ shame.” 

Ronald snaps and there's no joy in his heart when his son suddenly shows enough spine to snarl at him. Just irritation that he has to /whip/ him so to get him to show any spirit at all. He takes a deep breath. He has come with a purpose, after all. tempting though it is to stand there and shout at him until he thinks some grain of sense has been forced into his fool head.   
  
He rubs wearily at his eyes, pushing his own glasses aside, and then righting them on his face, again, taking a more measured tone.

“Thwaswere no time for phone calls. The Council has made a decision and you're lucky that I was able to convince Travers to allow me on the flight before, to prepare you of what's to come He wanted to merely _spring_ it on you. As though my hard work means no-”  
  
Another deep breath. He's going on a tangent again.  
  
“...Point and fact of the matter? You bloody well arsed up. Are you aware that another Slayer has been called? A girl in Jamaica. Brought forth by your carelessly with your Slayer and now we have not one, but _two_ of them active. You can't imagine the hell this has been back at the Council...the panic and confusion. You never reported her death to us. They thought you deserted and what do we find when we send an agent? A free-willed Slayer and a weak-willed Watcher, combined in a force that threatens the integrity of our _entire_ line of work!” 

“I hardly find the idea of there being _two_ Slayers fighting against the forces of darkness to be threatening, neither to the Council's...integrity nor to the battle against evil. That is still our line of work, yes? Not the collection and consolidation of power for the Council's personal gain?”

Giles starts to pace the Library floor.   
  
“Isn't it extraordinary to have a Slayer so powerful - and so well supported - that not even a thousand year old prophecy could take her down? Buffy isn't any ordinary girl, and as such requires a different style of guidance. What you consider "weak-willed" is flexibility, the same quality that allows a tree to bend in a storm, and not snap from its own brittle rigidity. But I digress. You say the Council has chosen to be punitive because my Slayer refused to...die?” 

He stops pacing and directs a weary, bitter smile towards his father. Giles has grown tremendously since he's arrived in the States, he just never had cause to notice until now. Until he finds himself facing the most terrifying monster of his young childhood and the source of his worst persecution as a young adult, and no longer feeling...fear.    
  
It's a curious sensation, to see the giant bogeyman of your memory was always only an old man with a twisted sense of right and wrong, after all.   
  
“Will they be cutting my pittance of a salary to thrice below minimum wage, then?”

“If this were about a simple cut in pay, would they have sent me all the way to deal with you?”    
  
Ronald, quite unaffected by his son's impassioned and aggravating speech, simply stands with his arms crossed, sure that he'll feel inclined to  _ throttle _ him if he doesn't. Rank, arrogant fool that he is... he should have known no lessons from the Council would stick with this boy.   
  
“Things are far more dire than you seem to think. We've never had two Slayers called at once; this is primeval magic that  _ you _ have disrupted. Archaic and temperamental. We don't know what will come from this. And with as delicate of a situation as you have here in Sunnydale... well, you can no longer be trusted to handle the severity of the Hellmouth. You've forced the Council into a corner. You've forced  _ my _ hand, here. Fifteen years of work and now…”   
  
He grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. The weapon is not  _ ready _ . And yet, here he is.   
  
“...I have been working on a weapon, Rupert. A creature who could kill hundreds more vampires in a gesture than the Slayer could in her entire time as the chosen. He's endowed with magic we don't fully understand.  And the Council has decided that the only course of action is to field test him  _ here _ . Find his true capability outside of the Council and keep an eye on things here. You're getting a bloody  _ babysitter  _ and you're ruining nearly two goddamn decades of work. I hope you're content with yourself.” 

Giles starts to protest with a point of order that he didn't have much of a hand in the alleged "disruption" of the Slayers line, but stops himself. Discretion is the greater part of valor, after all.   
  
He does startle at the mention of a weapon, of a monstrous creature with untested killing potential being sent to Sunnydale...as a  _ babysitter _ ?   
  
A babysitter??   
  
“I'm so terribly sorry that the life of a Slayer - a teenage girl - is so damn inconvenient to you. Have you considered changing careers to one where a human being living other than dying unspeakably young is not considered a failure?  Perhaps there's some ongoing branch of the Manhattan Project that will better suit your inclinations, father? Or some anti-vaccination corporation? You'll be able to oversee the deaths of scores of children in that capacity…” 

It’s hard to speak through the anger that makes his throat tighten, but Giles manages.   
  
“And...a BABYSITTER? A killing machine? You're sending a monster to watch me? How on earth does this follow any line of cogent reasoning, apart from perhaps Troll Logic?”

Ronald goes very red in the face.    
  
Not just because his ingrate of a son is damn near  _ shouting _ at him, but because he can't answer that question. Not with the truth. If Rupert hasn't figured it out on his own... well, all that intellect never meant much where it counted. 

Why send a monster to watch him?    
  
Why send a bloody unseasoned Watcher with a checkered past to guide an arrogant, bullheaded Slayer who already got one Watcher killed?    
  
Why send them both, inexperienced as they are, to a Hellmouth?   
  
The answer is all the same.    
  
And now Ronald is being tested as well. The sure failure of his weapon will haunt him for years after this is all over.   
  
“Believe me, if had any say in this... never let him  _ near _ you. Who knows what adverse effects seeing you, again, will have? Already so disobedient. Unswayed by reason  _ or _ pain…” 

He mutters, to himself, pushing his glasses out of his face. to rub at his eyes again.  Funny that Rupert should call it a monster with so much disgust in his eyes. He wonders if he'll still loathe it when he sees that Ronald only flipped the switch; Rupert provided the body.   
  
“Travers has his mind made up. It arrives tonight. Flown in privately by the Council. Couldn't risk other passengers. It's got a way with people, you see.”

“...Seeing me...again? What on Earth are you talking about?”

Ronald freezes at the question, suddenly made aware of his slip up. He hadn't intended on making that little detail apparent until it was unavoidable. (Perhaps some part of him was still foolishly clinging to the hope that he'd be able to change Travers' mind, even at the last minute?) But, really, what's the point of guarding the secret now? He'd know soon enough.   
  
“You've met.” He says, crossly. “In fact...I daresay I owe this entire project to you. It's almost poetic that you be the source of its conception  _ and _ destruction. You and those fool friends of yours...We never did talk much about this, but you came across something truly remarkable after you ran away like a child. The Sleepwalker. Eyghon had always interested the Council. His control of the dead and unconscious.” 

It’s a great and terrible thing. It still makes him giddy to think about. 

“His influence over that of even vampires. The Council once thought to bind him, but he could not exist in his true form in this realm. So, really, what was I supposed to do when you came to me with the body of someone who'd died with that ancient, unharnessed magic inside of them? I knew there was a chance of power transference. Odd things happen to those who are possessed. For good of the Council and the war we rage against the darkness, I had to…”

He trails off and shrugs.   
  
“Who would miss him, after all?”

He's not sure if he's telling the story or defending it. Justifying his actions. Not just in the face of his son, but to the whole world. In the balance, individual lives didn't matter. And this being, this magic, inside of a boy with no stable family…

“I was right. Of course, I was right.”

Giles clutches his upper forearm at the mention of The Sleepwalker, the Mark of Eyghon tattooed there seeming to grow hot in response to hearing it's name said out loud.   
  
As his father continues, the blood drains from Giles' face, and he falls back into a chair with a hard thump. It's as if the entire world has been yanked out from underneath him, leaving him shapeless, formless, floating in a terrible void of nothingness.   
  
“No. No, father, you didn't...not even you.. You...you couldn't…”   
  
A high whining whistle sounds inside his head, nearly blocking out all the other sounds in the room - Ronalds miserable story, the air hissing in the cooling vents faint shouts from the hallway outside the library's doors. 

The fall of black glitter in front of Giles eyes finally clues him in to the fact that his blood pressure has plummeted, along with his understanding of the world up until this moment, and he bends forward at the waist, tucking his head between his knees in an attempt to keep from passing out.   
  
“No, it can't be. It mustn't be. It can't be.”

Ronald, having never been a man with much background in sentimental affection - a long time ago, when he was a much different man, he must have loved his Elizabeth... but that seems so distant from him that he doesn't even think to compare it to this - misinterprets why Rupert has had such an extreme reaction to this news, assuming that he's worried about the risks that were taken to bind Eyghon's power into the mortal man.

“There’s no need to panic.” He says, in what he thinks is a 'soothing' tone of voice. “Eyghon's power is well-bound. The demon is no more; the creature that exists now is just a mortal vessel wielding the Sleepwalker's magic. You're in no danger from it. The debt you wagered your soul for has been voided by the power transference. You should be ecstatic; if I hadn't brought him back and tied it to him, the demon probably would have hunted you down and killed you for toying with it.”   
  
As though he did any of this for  _ him.  _   
  
“And no one ever came looking for the boy. Your secret is still safe; he knows better than to speak of how his power came to be. No one ever missed him.”   
  
Other Watchers had asked, true enough, but it only took a little...persuading to convince Randall that he ought never say who was part of his little cult.

“No need to...are you MAD?”   
  
A wave of anger crashes through Giles, washing away disbelief and shock like so many tiny pebbles in the face of a tsunami.   
  
“Creature? MORTAL VESSEL??”   
  
Giles rises and storms over to Ronald, gripping the man by his jacket lapels and shoving him against the nearest book shelves. Several large volumes dislodge and fall, but Giles' whole focus is on the monster he had called father for his entire life.   
  
“You trapped a DEMON in Randall's body? I thought he was DEAD. FOR FIFTEEN YEARS, I THOUGHT RANDALL EVANS WAS DEAD.”   
  
His face is livid, and spittle flies from his lips to settle in a fine mist on Ronald's face. He pulls on Ronald's jacket and shoves him again, harder, into the shelves. He pays no mind to the paperback books that nearly hit him as they spill to the floor by his feet.   
  
“Where. Is. He. Right. Now.”

If Ronald had been more fortunate, his son really would have passed out from the drop in his blood pressure and they could have avoided this bit of unbecoming madness that had settled over Rupert like a thunderstorm. Some small part of him was slightly horrified. He'd never seen his son lose control like this - had never been privvy to the intensity of Rupert's deep-set anger, because the boy had never been brave enough to react to the source of his own anger.    
  
But mostly he's just irritated. They don't have time for this nonsense and misplaced grief for a waste of a human that he barely  _ knew _ in that time that he ran away from his true destiny in life.   
  
“If all went according to plan, and it so rarely does, then he's on a plane, on his way to Sunnydale. As I said he would be. Now, get hold of yourself!”   
  
He tries to shove his son back, but he's much older than he used to be and the days when he could smack him off balance seemed to have passed. Truthfully, he's not used to not having someone in chains or behind bars at his mercy and the anger at  _ that _ only increases his own anger.    
  
He WANTS to hurt him. Wants to knock him back and make him use that fool head of his for once in his goddamn life. His disappointment of a son, always on the opposing side of things for no reason than to be obstinate. He wants to put the fear of him back into his son's eyes and maintain what little control he still has.    
  
So he speaks, disdain dripping from every word.   
  
“Always with the theatrics, Rupert. You expect me to believe that you grieved all this time over him? You killed him in a warehouse for fuck's sake. Is this guilt you feel so inclined to work through? Are you sorry that I left you to reflect over the murder? I thought it'd do you some GOOD.” 

But clearly, it hasn’t. He’s every bit as hot-headed as he was back then.   
  
“And what was he? Another waste of a human - drawn into the darkness and only interested in the next high. Adding nothing to the world around him and only taking I've given him a purpose in life; a part to play in a war that changes everything for the people around him. I made him something better and your ingrained need to oppose me surely can't be strong enough that you can ignore that. You know I'm right, you're just arguing for the sake of argument. What did you really care for him?”

Giles pulls an arm back, his fist tight and itching for violence, a ghost of the Ripper that was haunting his frozen blue eyes.   
  
“He was my best friend.”

The words are low and cold and aching. Not quite enough to match with the memories that swirl through his head, dizzying, at the mention of Randall. But all that he feels inclined to share with this man that dares to call himself his "Father".

“ Not that you would understand anything involving human emotions. I want his flight information, and then I want you to leave my Library, then leave this state, then leave this bloody continent. And if I see you again, father, in this life or the next...I will kill you.”

Giles shoves himself away from the man pressed against the bookshelves, an act of self preservation. He snatches up a notebook and pencil from the table and throws them at Ronald.   
  
“Write it down, then go.”

“I - I am to /be/ here when he arrives. I'm his handler. You have no idea what you're walking into. He's untested in the field. A monster, as you said yourself. “   
  
Ronald snarls at him, ignoring the pad of paper that was just thrown at him. He will not be ordered around by his own son.   
  
“He is not your friend, anymore.”

“Then I shall deal with that, myself.  _ You _ are neither wanted nor welcome.”   
  
Giles picks up the notebook and the pencil, and places them back on the table.   


He then turns, grabs his father by his left hand, and slams the hand flat on the table beside the pad. Giles picks up the pencil in his fist, and jams the point through the back of Rolands hand, pinning the hand to the table.   
  
“Flight information.  _ Then _ I shall call a taxi to take you to hospital.”

Ronald Giles' answering swear is loud and detailed enough to turn the heads of students in classrooms three doors away, but Rupert's methods of convincing are, in fact, convincing enough for him to hastily scrawl out the information onto the notepad with a pen retrieved with a shaking, undamaged hand and throws the pad back at Rupert, his face pale and beads of sweat forming at his hairline. His voice shakes -

“I hope you realize what you’ve done.”

Giles makes sure he can read the badly scrawled information before folding the paper and tucking it away in a pocket.   
  
He pulls the pencil out of his father's hand, wipes it off on his handkerchief, then hands the soiled fabric square to Ronald.

“I've gone and damaged school property, that's what I've done…”   
  
He frowns at the bloody divot in the table, then turns an eerily blank expression on his father.   
  
“Leave. Now.”

 

And not another word was spoken between them.


End file.
